Tottenham have faced Newcastle United twice so far this season.
Eddie Howe’s side with a comfortable 2-0 success at home in the Carabao Cup.
Then what should have been another comfortable 2-0 (or better) victory at St James’ Park. United twice leading but poor goalkeeping from Aaron Ramsdale allowing Romero to equalise twice.
Spurs looking less than impressive on both occasions, which has been pretty much the story of their season, except that is in the Champions League.
In the Premier League they have struggled badly, the Tottenham fans seeing their side only win two home league games this season, only rock bottom Wolves have picked up less points at home than Thomas Frank’s side.
Indeed, and this is a ridiculous statistic that takes some believing, but Tottenham fans have only seen their team win four home Premier League matches since 3 November 2024. Four home PL victories in 15 months!
To put that in some sort of context, in the same time period Newcastle United have won 16 Premier League matches at St James’ Park.
Yet on Sunday, Tottenham almost made it five home Premier League wins in 15 months, in the most bizarre of circumstances.
Watching yesterday’s match, the first half was embarrassing, I almost felt sorry for the Tottenham fans.
Manchester City totally dominated, they strolled through a half-hearted Tottenham side time after time, they led 2-0 at the break and it should have been four or five. The Spurs fans booing their team and manager.
Football is a strange game though.
A very scruffy lucky goal from Solanke on 53 minutes and suddenly out of nowhere, things couldn’t have been more different.
From that moment on, Tottenham were suddenly the better team, Manchester City all over the place at the back. The home side not doing anything extraordinary, just having a bit of a go, with Pep’s side suddenly looking so vulnerable.
Solanke got his and Spurs’ second goal on 70 minutes with a brilliant and bizarre ‘scorpion’ volley.
The final 20+ minutes then seeing Manchester City desperately hanging on for a draw, as Tottenham looked set to win.
Which brings me to Newcastle United.
If Eddie Howe’s side play like Tottenham did on Sunday in the first half, giving Manchester City free rein to do whatever they want, then things could get very messy.
However…if Newcastle United replicate what Tottenham managed to do in the final 40 minutes on Sunday, throughout the full game on Wednesday, then who knows?
Most Newcastle United fans have written our chances off but Tottenham ‘won’ that second half 2-0 and could and should have added to that in the closing stages.
Eddie Howe and his players need to win on Wednesday by at least two goals to potentially reach the final.
The bookmakers have odds of 14/1 on Newcastle United reaching the Carabao Cup final, which gives Eddie Howe’s team a chance of between 6% and 7% of turning it around against Manchester City.
I think there is a chance, even if it is a small one, both players and fans simply need to give it a real go and if United get the first goal at the Etihad, just maybe the luck and fine margins might go our way, unlike the last three games against Villa, PSG and Liverpool.